


vices

by softambrollins



Category: Professional Wrestling
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Canon Compliant, Codependency, Depression, Dom/sub Undertones, Enemies to Lovers, Hook-Up, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Love/Hate, M/M, Morning After, Self-Destruction, Smoking, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Verbal Humiliation, Violent Thoughts, set sometime after MITB 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:41:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24448267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softambrollins/pseuds/softambrollins
Summary: Dean doesn't know why he's here either. He's sure he can find lots of better places to put his dick that isn't the asshole who ruined his life. Maybe part of him thinks that if he fucks him good enough, he'll keep coming back. He'llstay. Or maybe he just wants it tohurtenough that it'll drive him away forever. And then Dean will smoke an entire pack in one night and put the neck of a bottle to his lips, tip the whole thing down his gullet without stopping, drink himself into a fucking coma and finally find something resembling peace.Maybe he'd prefer permanent brain damage than having to fuckinglookat Seth anymore. Having to miss him, towanthim even when he knows he might as well be a million light years away.
Relationships: Dean Ambrose | Jon Moxley/Seth Rollins | Tyler Black
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21





	vices

Somehow, this is what they are now: Dean's smoking a cigarette in his hotel room and watching him sleep next to him. He's lying on his stomach, breathing gently, hair covering his face and spilling onto the pillow, the sweep of messy, dark curls stark against the white sheets. His body looks warm and relaxed and eminently _touchable_ and he can't stop his eyes from tracing the line of his back down over the curve of his ass to where his tanned skin disappears under the sheets. It's the first time in more than a year that he's been awake in the same room as an unconscious, unguarded Seth Rollins. _This close._ He wants to turn time off so he could just _stay_ right there. Not just in his mind's eye or in his worst nightmares but in reality, this one moment that already feels stolen and tainted, like he was never meant to have it. He wishes the world would just end right now. Maybe he could just let the lit cigarette fall from his open mouth onto the bed between them and watch it all go up in flames. The two of them burning together like it was probably always meant to be. It would be that easy. 

Instead he just flicks wisps of gray ash onto the sheets and puts the cigarette back between his lips and keeps his eyes on him. Like maybe the weight of them will keep him there when nothing else can. Not even the end of the fucking world. He'd woken up and found him still there, the shadowy silhouette of his body on the mattress unfamiliar and _too_ familiar at the same time, like a dark ominous stain, a pool of blood, a hollow absence in his bed and in his life and in his fucking soul even while his heart's beating steadily only inches away. He shouldn't be here and he's _all_ Dean wants. And he had to reach over to the nightstand in the dark with clumsy, desperate hands and fumble around for the pack, light one up, just to stop the twitching in his fingers, to stop his hands from curling into tight fists, his fingernails from sinking deep into his skin and making those angry red crescent marks on his palm that he always associates with Seth now. To stop that unbearable urge to fucking smash something. 

It's the only time he's spent the night. He'd shown up after midnight, wearing that fucking _suit_ and Dean had just wanted to clock him square across the jaw, knock his teeth out, spill blood all over both of them. But he didn't. And Seth just stepped forward into his space and clutched one hand firmly into the front of his cheap polyester tank top to keep him there and took the ancient, weathered, cigarette-burned, blood-stained leather jacket off his shoulders and unzipped his faded, frayed, ripped jeans and slid his hand inside like it was all he wanted and that was that. 

He remembers when they first met and it felt like Seth was brand new and he didn't want to get him dirty like Dean was but at the same time he just wanted to _touch_ , hands shaking and greedy for a new fix. Seth seems to like rolling around in the dirt now. 

When Dean had rolled off of him forty-ish minutes later, he thought he would've gotten up, started quickly and efficiently putting his clothes back on like he always does, and then left quietly without a word like a thief in the night. But he'd just stayed there, breathing hard, eyes going out of focus as he stared at the ceiling. He absently wiped the mess on his stomach off on the sheets. Then he just went still, lying on his back, naked, sheets tangled around his limbs, not moving at all like he was suddenly dead tired. Maybe it was all of the last year finally creeping inside his body and weighing him down, like water filling up his lungs, heavy and saturated. He'd passed out into a deep sleep in minutes. 

Dean only ever sleeps that deep when he drinks himself into it. And then he has to deal with the vicious creatures in his dreams trying to tear him apart. He can't ever really _rest_ even when he's self-medicated to the point of barely having a pulse. He almost envies him. He wonders how many nights out of the last three-hundred Seth slept through like a fucking baby. That's his fucking gift. Detaching shit so neatly in his brain that it's like it never happened. Like he never did it. He wonders what it takes for Seth to look in the mirror and see himself pristine and clean and unmarred by his own nefarious actions. Dean still sees the fresh blood on his hands, like wet paint, dripping, staining everything he touches. Dean's body is dark all over now too. There's a blood-red handprint smeared right across his heart. Neither of them are ever gonna get clean. They're just passing the damage back and forth. 

The first time was after he pulled off one of the most shady con jobs in history and Dean had given him a mocking "Congratulations" and Seth had actually looked like he was fucking _proud_.

"Told you you couldn't keep it up the whole time," he said and it was almost like he was sorry, like he wished Dean would keep chasing him. Like Seth doesn't fucking _know_ , that Dean will be chasing him forever, briefcase or no briefcase. 

He wanted to strangle him but instead he reeled him in and slowly kissed him and maybe he could've blamed it on the stitches still in his scalp, on being half-concussed and out of his mind from his head being split open on a fucking ladder — but it was really just because he wanted to see if he tasted different, _felt_ different. Now that he wasn't just _Seth Rollins, Scumbag_ but _Seth Rollins, Champion_. To see if something had changed fundamentally inside him. If maybe, just maybe, it was fucking worth it. Seth wasn't even startled by it, had just pulled him closer and opened his mouth under Dean's, like he was _waiting_ for it this whole time. 

And it drives him crazy that he still doesn't _know_. Seth may play dress up and put on his shiny suits and try to fool everyone else but Dean always knows what every inch of his skin tastes like under his teeth and under his tongue. At least he knows _that_. Seth is still achingly, wretchedly _human_ despite his best efforts. The thing he despises the most. And maybe that's why he didn't tell him to fuck off months ago. 

He clenches his teeth and turns his gaze away when he sees Seth finally start to stir next to him. He turns over onto his back, sheets rustling under him, makes a soft, sleepy sound that Dean tells himself doesn't tug painfully at something deep in his chest. He just slowly opens his eyes and looks at Dean like he's not even surprised to find him there. 

"Shit, what time is it," he says, voice low and muffled.

Dean just mumbles an incoherent non-answer under his breath. That's why he put a cigarette in his mouth, so he wouldn't have to fucking _talk_ to him. It doesn't explain why he hadn't just got up and left him there hours ago so this didn't have to happen at all. 

Seth seems to just ignore it and Dean feels the mattress shift beneath him as he slowly eases himself upright into a seated position, stretching his stiff joints, back and neck cracking loudly. Dean keeps his face stubbornly pointed in front of him but he watches out of his periphery as he scrubs a hand over his face, stifles a yawn, like he's still tired but like some external force had jerked him awake anyway. He runs his fingers back through his tangled hair and then sets his jaw, a steely expression dropping over his face all at once, like he's made a decision. And then he slides off the end of the bed and onto his feet in one smooth action, bending down to pick his crumpled clothes up off the ground, gracefully stepping into his expensive dark slacks and pulling them up, like he's back on autopilot. 

And suddenly, this is the Seth he's grown accustomed to again. It's almost a strange kind of relief. 

Dean just stares at him, puffing on his cigarette while Seth finds his fancy Italian leather shoes and starts putting them on. And then he finally makes a noise to get his attention. A bitter scoff that he aims at him like a weapon, so sharp that it could almost graze his skin. 

"So I'm the other woman now, huh. Fucking ironic," he says, voice rough and grating, from the smoke and from having to sit here and watch Seth walk away again like this is their new fucking normal. Like there's anything fucking _normal_ about this. 

Seth doesn't even bother to look up at him.

"That's not — You know it's not like that. I like the way you fuck me. That's all." He almost sounds like he fucking means it too. That's another one of Seth's gifts. Lying to himself.

"I'm sure you can pay someone to fuck you just as good," Dean muses out loud. "Or they might even do it for free if you flash that shiny belt of yours around."

A month ago, Dean had fucked him practically on top of it — he wonders what all the fucking fabled legends of the past who carried it around, the most prestigious prize in the history of the sport, would've thought of that — and he'd pulled out at the last moment and come all over Seth’s side plates, his initials, and Seth had just looked up at him with this annoyed, petulant look on his face, pouting like a child with a broken toy. He hopes he'd gotten it cleaned after he pulled it down from where it was suspended, above the ladder they'd both climbed together, with opposite results. 

Somehow _this_ feels just like standing at the top of that ladder with one useless leg and looking up at the belt dangling above him, fingertips brushing against it but it still feeling so far out of his reach. And then it slipping right out of his grasp as he crashed to the mat again, like he could only ever be right _there_ , lying on the cold, hard ground, at the bottom of the mountain, hands empty — 

Dean's just left here now, sitting amongst the filth of his shitty hotel room, watching Seth put his fake, glossy mask and costume back on, before he goes back to his ivory tower built on greed and broken bodies and lies.

Seth actually looks up from tying his shoes to shake his head now. "Won't be the same." 

Dean still has no idea why he's doing this. Maybe he gets off on feeling guilty and dirty and used and Dean telling him what a _fucking disgusting sellout scumbag_ and a _worthless lying piece of shit_ he is while he's pounding him into the mattress. Or maybe he's just pretending. Maybe he still feels like someone else under Dean's hands, his mouth. Someone he used to be. 

"You can't have it both ways," Dean tells him tersely.

"I know that. I've known that from the beginning." He finally straightens back up to look him in the face. Seth's eyes are as dead and dull and empty as a black hole. It's like no light can escape his body anymore, he just swallows it all up and gives him back nothing in return. He's the cold, dark pit at the centre of his world that he has to navigate his life around now. And he still always gets caught up in its orbit despite himself, it's always trying to suck him in, and sometimes it's easier to just give in to the infinite gravity — Seth's all the demons in his nightmares, sharp teeth and claws trying to unmake him.

"So why are you here?" he demands, but not really wanting to know either. Dean's the dirty secret, the bad habit, that Seth can't ever shake. No matter how much he tries to convince himself that he's someone different now, that he can cut himself off cold turkey from all the deepest, rawest desires running through his veins. He's not the icy, unfeeling machine he wants so desperately to be. One part of him is still burning and alive and pulsing with bright red blood. And it _wants_ this. Wants bruises and violence and scratches down his back and Dean's harsh, cruel, filthy kiss, laced with cheap whiskey and acrid smoke. Wants to taste Dean's warm coppery blood in his mouth even as the taste of victory's gone as cold as his withered heart. He got everything he wanted, burnt down Dean's whole world for it, and he's still not satisfied. And that's why he's here. To take even more. Night by night. In blood and in pain. 

And Dean should fucking _hate_ him for this, for thinking that Dean’s just gonna be waiting here for him always whenever he needs a hit, but he can't deny that hot, thick craving curling inside his own gut either. 

Dean doesn't know why he's here either. He's sure he can find lots of better places to put his dick that isn't the asshole who ruined his life. Maybe part of him thinks that if he fucks him good enough, he'll keep coming back. He'll _stay_. Or maybe he just wants it to _hurt_ enough that it'll drive him away forever. And then Dean will smoke an entire pack in one night and put the neck of a bottle to his lips, tip the whole thing down his gullet without stopping, drink himself into a fucking coma and finally find something resembling peace. 

Maybe he'd prefer permanent brain damage than having to fucking _look_ at Seth anymore. Having to miss him, to _want_ him even when he knows he might as well be a million light years away.

Fucking Seth feels good, and maybe it's fucked-up that he still thinks this is what he deserves, that he's not worth more than Seth trying to destroy him and then begging him to fuck him like this has all been some twisted game, but maybe _that_ will feel so much better. All the fucking lights going off at once. Not having to wake up to a new day in this empty, barren hellscape that's become his reality. 

"I'm selfish. I thought that was the point," Seth says, shoulders shrugging. He's slid his arms into the sleeves of his silk shirt now, carefully adjusting the cuffs and the collar.

Dean shakes his head, almost amused. "You're such a fucking asshole," he breathes out with an ugly, disbelieving laugh. Like it's somehow still surprising even after all this time.

"Yeah, but you're still here, aren't you?" Seth tells him with a pointed look.

And Dean can't deny that. But that doesn't mean he can't keep being fucking angry. Nothing about any of this changes anything, it doesn't change who Seth is, what he did to him. Not one goddamn thing. It doesn't erase the bloody stains between them. Doesn't pull the dagger free out of his ribcage. It's still there and the wound's still gushing and he doesn't know how Seth's hands can hold so much of his blood, of his shredded insides. He's never going to give it back to him. Seth can't begin to patch up all the holes inside him even if he wanted to. Being angry at him is just as useless as fucking him and they both know it.

"I should claw your fucking face off," he says anyway.

"Nah, you like me this pretty," he says, his eyes glinting teasingly, tongue sneaking out between his lips to wet them. His fingers are still casually, methodically fastening the buttons on his shirt like this is just another totally unexceptional morning for him. And fuck that, honestly. Fuck _Seth_ for thinking that he's owed this somehow. That he can just have it without having to look too closely at it. At Dean. 

"And what do _you_ like, Seth? You have what you wanted. You have the title. You're on top of the fucking world. You have all the money and power and lackeys to do your bidding. So why do you keep coming back? What do you want with me? I'm _nothing_ , right? What, you just wanna drive the knife in deeper?" He's fucking tired of all of _this_ , of pretending, that they're different people than exactly who they both know they are.

Seth swallows, looks up at him, fingers stopping on the second to last button. And Dean almost, _almost_ sees a faint, passing glimmer of the Seth he once knew flickering behind his dark eyes. Bright and glowing. There and then gone before he can capture it. Before he can nurture it into something more that might feel dangerously akin to _hope_.

"You're the only person who looks at me and actually _sees_ me. Like I'm fucking _real_." It feels like the first truly genuine thing that's fallen from his traitorous lips in fucking _years_.

Dean somehow knows exactly what he means. He's felt like a fucking ghost for a whole year except for when his hands were on Seth, their bodies becoming alive and incendiary every time they collided. Heavy fists beating his face in or fingers wrapped tightly around his throat or buried deep inside of him where neither of them can escape. Maybe that's what this is. A prison they built together and neither of them can find their way out unless they both decide to let go. Dean doesn't think he'd feel someone else's touch even if he wanted it. He's gone numb inside except for when Seth’s right fucking _there_ , staring at him or fucking with him or crawling into his bed in the dead of night like he belongs there or getting on his knees in front of him in the locker room after narrowly avoiding getting his skull fucking crushed into pieces under Dean's boot, at Dean's hands. Maybe he _wants_ to be punished. Maybe he thinks this is his penance. Maybe it fucking hurts him just as badly to sneak out every morning before the sun comes up. Maybe he sits and stares at Dean while he's sleeping too. 

Or maybe Dean's just a fucking pathetic moron like Seth already thinks. It's not fucking good enough though. It never will be. That's not what this is. It's never been about that. This can't put the fractured pieces back together. It's just another drug they both can't live without that's going to turn toxic in their veins. It's just a shitty substitute for the initial pain of their sudden, sharp severing that will do so much more damage. That will consume them from the inside and rot their hearts away until there's nothing left to salvage. They can't be anything but just _this_ now. And maybe that's what they both think they deserve. 

There's no saving this. Either way, they're both going down sooner or later. They're just delaying the inevitable. This is just them trying to hold on to something that doesn't exist anymore, that's crumbling beneath them. They're just trying to slow down time, make it last, and maybe that's what's gonna kill them in the end. Seth wanted a clean, quick break and it's anything but now. It's all messy and muddled. It's a fucking minefield of hurt and devastation and another bomb goes off inside the cavern of his chest every time Seth leaves again.

"I thought you didn't want to be real? You wanted the fucking mirage, the golden dream, everything bathed in fucking champagne and diamonds. What, has it already lost its lustre?" he bites out scornfully.

"I don't know. Maybe I just like slumming it with the gutter trash. Maybe I get off on it," he says dismissively, flicking his eyes away from Dean's glance, like he's brushing it away the way he's brushed away everything else _real_ in his life. But he's not even trying to be convincing now. There's nothing like conviction on his face.

"You're so fucking pathetic, Seth. I'd almost feel sorry for you if you weren't — well, _you_ ," he tells him, mean and honest. Deliberately wanting to leave a scar. Hurting Seth does nothing for him but he needs to know he can do it anyway.

"At least I have something in this world. What do _you_ have, Dean?" He drops his hands from the front of his shirt now, looking at him with a mix of disgust and pity. Like he really fucking believes that. That he's somehow better off now.

Dean may dream of it all being gone sometimes, but he knows that he'll take all of _this_ spilling out of him, the pain and the blood and the guts, a million times over the empty, plastic shell that Seth lives in now. It's all he has left. It's the only thing that makes him real, that makes any of this mean a goddamn thing. It's the one thing still driving him. No one can take that away. 

"It's not gonna last. You _know_ it's not gonna last. You knew from the moment you swung that chair. You blew it all up and you thought you saved yourself but what you built for yourself instead is a house of cards," he tells him, voice placid.

"But I still _did_ it. I _made_ that choice," he says firmly, like it's all he has left to hang on to. Seth and his _choices_. Seth knowing what's right for everybody. Seth choosing to end it before it could all fall apart on its own like that makes it more bearable. Knowing that at least one goddamn thing was in his control. "Because it was more important. _This_ is more important."

Dean takes a deep drag then, slowly exhales smoke out his nose into the space between them. He lowers it from his mouth.

"Yeah, but you're still here," he says, echoing his own words back at him. 

"I —" Seth starts, eyes wide and unsure, looking shaken for the first time. 

"I hope you're happy, Seth. I really do. With your perfect life and whatever _this_ is," he says, gesturing between them with the hand still loosely grasping his cigarette, "that you need to get through the day without fucking ending it all. I know all about vices and I'm fine being one for now. But when it all comes crashing down, don't come crawling back to me. Because that's the day I won't be here."

If Seth can delude himself into thinking he can move on, then so can Dean. He doesn't have the monopoly on fucking lying to himself.

Seth just blinks at him for a few moments, then nods stiffly.

"Fine," he says, voice even, just as stubborn as ever.

He watches as he puts his suit jacket back on, smooths it out over his body, fixes the lapels in the mirror. Sweeps the stray locks back out of his face with one motion. He gathers all of his hair up in his hands behind his head and twists it around itself a few times and ties it into a makeshift knot at the base of his skull, like he doesn't want to remember Dean's hands in his hair. It does nothing for the visible, raised bruises on his neck though. 

He's probably imagining the way Seth hesitates at the door with his hand gripped tightly around the doorknob, head and shoulders slumped, face turned away from him. Clean and crisp and all pulled back together, someone else again. But Dean always _knows_.

"Keep that title close, princess," he tells him in a low drawl. Almost like a challenge, a warning. A portent of the doom that's coming for both of them someday. 

And then Seth's gone. Like he always is. But he'll be back. That's the one thing he knows about this fucked-up, unfortunate mess of a shitstorm that they made for themselves.

He puts out the butt of his cigarette in an empty beer can and sinks back down onto the bed, slowly shifts over to the side Seth was sleeping on, curls up in the body-shaped indent that's still there, feeling the warmth he left behind on his skin, smelling his stupid fucking cologne and shampoo on the sheets, closes his eyes and lets himself surrender to it, everything Seth stole from him, like his guts being ripped out, and all the monsters that are lurking down there at the bottom. The pain's better than the absence and the silence. Than another empty, empty bed. He feels it wrap around his body like a heavy, familiar blanket.

He knows when he wakes up, it will still be here waiting for him.


End file.
